Danse Macabre

Hi everybody - happy weekend to you!  I'm delighted you're able to spend a little bit of it here at Words and Pictures.... and a big welcome to the new followers - thank you so much for your support.

Today I'm sharing my take on Tim Holtz's October tag in the 12 Tags of 2012.  I was in two minds about this one as there's loads of glitter (which I don't really do so far), but he's also using a wrinkly tissue paper background (one of my all-time favourite things so far).  So in the end the tissue paper won - and here it is:

There's definitely a soundtrack to this one - the music trickling down the centre in a streak of fiery blood is inspired by Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre - have a listen as you go, if you like!

Quite a lot of spinning off from the Master's inspiration here - as I had to invent my way round the lack of some of the supplies he's used.  

But I enjoyed trying to create my glitter alternatives - and, as it says, I'm pretty happy with some of the results!

As regulars will know, the tissue paper background is one of my staples.  I stamped it with the Kaisercraft music stamp in Archival Black first, glued it on nice and 'wrinklily', and then had great fun blending paint, ink and Perfect Pearls mist to get a good patina on it.







The bats and skull-and-crossbones came as little freebies with one of my Funkie Junkie Boutique purchases, and I'd used them to experiment with Andy Skinner's rust technique as part of the Timeworn Techniques workshop.  So they already had quite a lot of texture on.  

I added Black Soot Distress Embossing Powder to alter the colour and add even more texture.  






And I added a brushstroke or two of some sparkly embossing powder my sister-in-law gave me from her stash, so that I could approach a glittery look as well as texture.  

Behind it you can see that - since I don't have the spider's web stamp - I've used the crackle texture from the TH Ultimate Grunge set to give me my cobwebs in the background.

No big Boo! die to work with (boo hoo!), but I love the Happy Halloween calligraphy in the TH Apothecary set, so decided to try that out with a similar set of ingredients.  It's embossed with Black Soot embossing powder, and then got a good coat of Rock Candy Distress Stickles.  

As Tim says in his tutorial for this month's tag, it gives more of a lustre than an out-and-out bling effect, but I'm probably more of a lustre-type than a bling-gal, so it suits me fine!

The Arsenic label is also from the Apothecary set - stamped onto the corner of some old music paper, so it was already a good aged colour, but I've added some creases and tears, and some Vintage Photo to the edges nonetheless!  

I've also added the Poison label from a different Apothecary set - the Oxford Impressions Dr Coffin's Apothecary, and clipped it on with one of the Idea-ology hinge clips (so cool!).  

With no calendar ticket attached, I wanted to highlight the number 31 in another way - so there are some grungeboard figures, painted with acrylic, and given a good smear of Distress Stickles in Frayed Burlap.  (And edged of course with good old Vintage Photo!)

So, that's pretty much me for today.  I really enjoyed playing with this - as, again, it's taking me to new colour zones, and even this much bling is a lot for me... so thanks for the inspiration, Tim!  And thank you all for coming to check it out.  Look forward to seeing you again, here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland!


Lady Nancy Astor:          Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea.
Sir Winston Churchill:   Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.

I'm entering this in the Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2012 for October
And I'd like to add it to Anything But a Card's current challenge of Halloween or Autumn colours

Oh, and please forgive me for doing a little celebration dance - I'm so thrilled that the Sonnet Mash Up got a Top 3 spot at Simon Says Stamp and Show!!